Time In Blue
by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: Susan survived the Time War to find Time changed and torn around her. Susan tries to make a life for herself, helped by UNIT and the reappearance of her Grandfather. But can they get past the horrors of the war, and find a way to repair Time itself?
1. Shattered Moments

**Title**: Time In Blue

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary: **Susan survived the Time War. Now in the aftermath, she does her best to live.

**Setting: **After the Time War. AU version of Series One of New Who, kind of. Spoilers for Seventh Doctor story _Battlefield_ in this, but not that many.

**Author notes:**

_This is the Author Auction fic for Wiggiemomsi. She requested Susan, having read _Family Matters_ and _Daughter of Time_, and so I promised her a Susan & Nine story. Naturally this meant that it was going to be a post-War fic, and it went from there._

_-_

_This has Susan in it. She is a little different from my usual Susans, however. The Ninth Doctor was the Doctor left torn and hardened and battle-weary in the aftermath of the Time War; this Susan is his equivalent, the Susan who fought in and survived it but was left damaged._

_This fic will start out a bit dark, with odd comical touches, but should lighten up a bit later on._

_-_

_I owe thanks to _Jessa L'Rynn_ who suggested the form of the aliens in this chapter when I was stuck, which not only solved my dilemma but opened up a possible backstory idea I never would have thought of otherwise._

* * *

**TIME IN BLUE**

**CHAPTER ONE**

**SHATTERED MOMENTS**

* * *

The first thing that Susan knew, in a long time, was that she was in a cell.

It wasn't a Dalek cell, because the architecture was all wrong and besides, Daleks weren't the sort of thoughtful beings to stick you in a bed and clean clothes.

Some other species, then.

Susan drifted off.

The next time she woke up, nightmares fading but still clinging like ghostly echoes, she was a lot more lucid. She felt weak, and was in a lot of pain, but could think more or less coherently despite the lingering fog in her mind.

She had a drip in one arm, and the other was attached to a set of monitors. Susan blinked groggily, trying to persuade her eyes to focus.

There was a noise, and Susan turned her head to see people in the doorway.

Humans, Susan thought, with a sudden unexpected rush of affection.

"Major General Bambera, U.N.I.T.," said the woman in front briskly, while Susan fought down emotion. "Name and species?"

There were a lot of names Susan had used, over the years, including a lilting chiming one – _not the lilting chiming one_ – but for some reason she instinctively chose one of the oldest.

Susan found that she had to search for the words from memory, and realised that part of her pain was the throbbing absence of her TARDIS' presence.

"Susan Foreman," she said carefully; it had been a few centuries since she'd last spoken English. "I'm a Time Lady."

Bambera's face showed a conflict of emotions of which at least two were disgust and exasperation.

"I see. Have you been on Earth before?"

Susan nodded, wincing as her headache increased sharply with the motion.

"I attended Coal Hill school in 1963 as a student, and I spent thirty years here during the 22nd century."

"Thirty years?" It was slightly challenging, matching Bambera's skeptical expression.

"I was married," Susan said quietly, "to a human man. We had children."

Susan wasn't sure, but she thought something in Bambera's expression softened at that. She was still in too much pain to care.

One of the people with Bambera, not a soldier, cleared his throat.

"She's still recovering, Major General."

"I understand that, doctor," Bambera not-quite barked at him.

She turned back to Susan, her tone returning to brisk and professional.

"We'll start a search for your records. Do you represent any kind of threat to this planet and what are your intentions in coming here?"

Susan thought about both of those questions for a long moment. She was beginning to drift off again, thanks to all the drugs in her system and her debilitated state.

"I don't intend any harm. I just... I just want to live."

Susan closed her eyes and let oblivion wash awareness away.

-

The next time Bambera stopped by, Susan was more or less her usual self, despite the jagged edges in her mind and the gulf of loneliness stretching as far as her thoughts and emotions could feel.

"This is excellent tea," Susan informed the Major General, from where she sat nibbling some convalescent food. She'd looked in a mirror this morning, so she knew that the face that greeted Bambera was a young gently-rounded face, bruised and battered, surrounded by a mess of dark hair that fell raggedly to the jawline, the rest having been haphazardly hacked off. Long hair had been a hindrance that Susan couldn't afford. She'd been half-delirious with regeneration sickness at the time, and that was bad enough.

"I've been looking at your school records," Bambera said without ceremony. "They say that you were a model student, except for some strange misconceptions on certain subjects. Very bright."

Susan grinned impishly. It felt unfamiliar.

"Well, it wasn't my fault that my previous education had been more advanced than theirs."

"According to the school's notes, your home address belonged to a junkyard. It was assumed that it had been recorded incorrectly. We also spoke to two of your former teachers, a married couple, who claim to have travelled with you at one point. According to them, the Doctor's your grandfather."

Susan couldn't help the delighted smile that took over her face.

"They got married? Oh, that's marvellous. Yes, he is." The smile wavered and died. "Was."

"Was?" Bambera interrogated.

"There was a war." Susan's eyes were distant.

She sent Bambera a sharp look.

"Be careful with my ship. It's Tcalanth class. Military issue. It has automated measures to prevent its seizure by the enemy."

Bambera's expression turned sour.

"Yeah, we've discovered that."

Susan twitched irritably.

"What did you expect? That it would be _easy_ for someone else to commandeer it?"

Susan closed her eyes, regretful at the startling amount of venom that had coursed through her. She consciously pushed the war-hardened part of her away and down.

Susan opened her eyes.

"I'm willing to help U.N.I.T. recover some of the technology," she said softly, "but honestly, some of it really is too dangerous for humanity to get hold of at this point in history. You're a very young species, you know. Time Lords existed for a million years. We had time to learn restraint."

"Not enough to prevent getting into a war," Bambera muttered.

Susan's eyes suddenly blazed unearthly fire.

"For you and your miserable peers!" she yelled. The rage was all-encompassing. "We _fought_ and _died_ so that you and all the other species could continue in ignorance, never knowing how close you came to being turned to dust! We stopped them from annihilating _you_ and all the others, the _civilians_, because no one but us _could!_ Because it was our responsibility to keep you _safe_ and we _died_ for it!"

Susan screwed her eyes tightly shut, but the tears continued regardless. She was shaking uncontrollably with anger and anguish.

Bambera spoke quietly.

"I'm sorry."

Susan just ignored her, and listened to the footsteps recede until Susan was left alone with her pain and loneliness.

**o0o o0o o0o**

It took time, of course, but Susan's injuries healed, and the raw agony in her mind scabbed over.

Susan was surprised to be offered the post of scientific advisor at U.N.I.T., but accepted. She let her hair grow and had it trimmed into something resembling order, so that she could pin it back neatly. It would be nice to have long hair again.

She was also surprised to find that she got on quite well with Bambera. They were very different people, but somehow their military experiences had given them a kind of common understanding to work from.

It was bemusing to discover that Major General Bambera was also Winifred Bambera, with a little girl and a husband.

Of course, the little girl was a tiny fury who thought she was a paratrooper, and the husband was a former knight of the court of King Arthur, but still. It was very friendly and homey, even with Gwyneth jumping out of cupboards at unexpected moments wearing a hat she'd stolen from an unsuspecting corporal and yelling at people to put their hands up.

"She's very fierce," Susan told Bambera, who was demanding to know where the hat had come from.

"Thanks," Bambera said. "Leave the men alone, Gwyneth, or no duelling lessons for a week."

"Awww." Gwyneth turned her attention to Susan. "Do you know anything interesting?"

Susan looked down at her and tried to decide what would interest the strange little human girl.

"How would you like to hear a story about escaping a murderous civilisation called the Aztecs?"

"Cool!" The little girl exclaimed. "Mum, can I?"

"Only if you behave," Bambera said sternly.

So Susan told Gwyneth about finding herself in 15th century Mexico with her grandfather and Ian and Barbara, and pretending to be important people, and the fanatical Aztecs, especially the traitorous Tlotoxl.

"The knave!" Gwyneth shouted. She used words like that a lot.

As Bambera returned from telling off the corporal for letting a little girl steal his beret without him realising, Susan explained how their cleverness allowed them to escape.

"C'mon, kid, your Dad's back, so let's get you back to him before I kill him for leaving you at headquarters all day," Bambera told Gwyneth.

"Fare well, Lady Foreman," Gwyneth said to Susan, and followed her mother, thick ponytail bouncing with her hyperactive movements.

Thinking about it later, Susan decided that the child's visit had brightened up her day.

**o0o o0o o0o**

About three months after Susan joined U.N.I.T., the usual state of affairs was interrupted by a fully-fledged alien invasion.

The first Susan knew was when she received a phone call at six in the morning telling her to come into headquarters immediately.

Headquarters was swarming with people, all in a flurry of activity. Susan sought out Bambera.

"About time you showed up," Bambera said shortly.

"What's happening?" Susan asked. "And is it possible to get a cup of tea?"

"Corporal Sparrow!" Bambera bellowed. "Get Miss Foreman a cup of char this minute!"

The hapless corporal whose hat had been stolen a few weeks earlier by Gwyneth saluted and hurried off.

Bambera turned back to Susan.

"We've been invaded by dinosaurs." It was a flat statement.

"Dinosaurs?" Susan ventured, feeling that this demanded further explanation.

"Yep." Bambera sighed grimly. "Four o'clock this morning, a ship landed on the outskirts of London. Within half an hour dinosaurs in jumpsuits were assassinating cabinet ministers. The rest are under heavy guard now, but the dinosaurs've started working in groups, which makes them even harder to stop. They're very fast, and lethal."

Corporal Sparrow reappeared then, bearing a cup of tea. Susan thanked him politely and sipped at it.

"Has anyone gotten any images of them?" Susan inquired.

"Parker!" Bambera's shout filled the room. The head of U.N.I.T.'s scientific team looked up and around in surprise.

"Show Ms Foreman the photos of our assassins," Bambera ordered.

Parker scowled slightly, but beckoned Susan over.

The two of them didn't get along very well. While Parker was officially in charge of U.N.I.T.'s scientific experts, in practice Susan was often given precedence because of her superior knowledge and experience with aliens, and Parker resented it. Susan tried to work around his hostility, but found that it often slowed things down.

Now she peered at the photos with a mixture of intrigue and resignation as parker tattled off everything U.N.I.T. had deduced so far.

To Susan, they looked awfully and depressingly like _velociraptor mongoliensis _in an impossibly-advanced state of evolution.

Acting on a hunch, she waited for a pause in Parker's stream of data and asked,

I don't suppose anyone noticed whether they appear to have a group of symbols somewhere on their skin, by any chance?"

Parker looked surprised and suspicious.

"As a matter of fact, we noticed earlier that the aliens appear to have some kind of symbolic markings on their neck," he pulled out a photograph that had been cropped and enlarged to show a close-up of a dinosaur's neck, "although these do not appear to be tattoos or artificial markings, but part of their natural skin coloration."

Susan looked gloomily at the familiar symbols.

-

"Well, I can tell you why they look like dinosaurs," she told Parker and Bambera. "It's because they _are_ dinosaurs."

"How is that possible?" Parker demanded.

"Because they've been genetically-engineered." Susan tapped the symbols. "This marking was implanted on a genetic level so that they could be easily identified as modified creatures. She must have been called away in such a hurry that she never had a chance to terminate the experiment. These dinosaurs must have had an entire planet to evolve on, and technology to scavenge once they evolved highly enough."

"How do you know?" someone called.

Susan paused a moment.

"The first two markings are representations of my grandmother's name," she admitted.

"_What?_" That was from Bambera.

"She always had a certain interest in dinosaurs," Susan explained. "But I told you, they're clearly part of a pre-Time War experiment. Even if she wasn't dead, Grandmother would never have let them run amok like this."

"Whether she let them or not it doesn't help the situation," Bambera said tersely. "Is there anything you can do?"

Susan paused in thought.

The Major General waited impatiently, clearly restraining herself from saying something scathing,

"Possibly," Susan said finally.

"Well?" Bambera prodded sharply.

"Well, I won' know until I'm dealing with them," Susan pointed out reasonably.

Susan had noticed, over the years, that being calm and reasonably infuriated some humans near to the point of derangement.

She watched now as Bambera demonstrated that she was one of their number.

"If you don't know then why am I hiring you as a scientific advisor!" the woman bellowed.

Susan blinked in mild surprise, not at all affected.

"Because I have a much better chance of working out a way than anyone else, of course."

Bambera appeared to struggle with herself, or possibly the urge to strangle Susan.

While she was doing that Susan borrowed some of the photographs and sat down to look at them more clearly.

This was mostly as a prompt for her mind to go over everything she knew about her grandmother's experiments.

This was not as much data as Susan would have liked. She hadn't visited her grandmother very often, and most of her memories were a bit fuzzy anyway from being forced through two consecutive regenerations in a very short period while Time was unravelling around her.

Still, Susan thought, her experiments always had some kind of weakness, so that her grandmother could terminate the experiment promptly without any trouble. The tricky bit was working out what that weakness was…

Susan moved on to mentally cataloguing everything she knew about _velociraptor mongoliensis_, ignoring everything that was going on around her.

Her attention refocused on the chaos when Bambera stood before her.

Susan looked up attentively.

"We're sending a couple of teams out to their ship to negotiate. Are you up to it?"

Susan's eyes went sharp and cold.

"Quite up to it, Major General."

"Right. You're going. See if you can figure out a way to deal with them."

Susan nodded shortly.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Susan found herself climbing into an armoured vehicle with a small team of U.N.I.T. soldiers. They'd given her a bullet-proof vest, and a gun.

There was another team in the vehicle in front, who were to directly negotiate with the aliens. Susan was going with the back-up group – mostly soldiers – and would intercede if she felt it was necessary.

There was no conversation as they drove. Susan examined her gun and the expressions of the other occupants. It reminded her of the War.

The alien's ship proved to be all sharp angles and smooth planes. There were a handful of aliens standing sentry outside. Further down the street UNIT had set up a blockade.

As the two armoured vehicles approached, part of the blockade was opened up and they were waved through.

The dinosaurs had apparently noticed their presence; a number had exited the ship and were hanging around in packs as the vehicles drew near.

The first team left their vehicle and approached. Susan listened to the attempt at conversation/negotiation through her earphones. It was going nowhere.

Then it went to hell.

Suddenly the dinosaurs were swarming, attacking everywhere; the people in the first team were dead. Susan was surrounded by bellowing soldiers scrambling to defend and the sound of gunfire.

Time slid out into splintered moments.

Susan was out of the vehicle and running.

Slow blurred shapes flickered in and out around her, a U.N.I.T. beret recognisable here, the glinting clawed fingers of an alien there.

Most of the aliens were near the ship. Susan went for them.

Time snapped back together with a slam.

-

"_STOP!_" Susan roared. She'd sent out a mental pulse full of commanding tones, so she wasn't surprised when everyone halted, even the aliens.

Susan stalked over to the leading velociraptor, radiating presence.

"Identify yourself," she ordered in Galactic Basic. There were innumerable dialects of it across the galaxy, but all were more or less understandable to others speakers with a bit of concentration.

The velociraptor gave a low snarl in reply.

Not for the first time, Susan wished her TARDIS was still alive. The telepathic translation circuits would have been really useful right now.

One of the other aliens snapped something at the first. It growled back in return, but twisted its head back to Susan.

There was a brief crackle, then

"Identify _yourself_." The rasping snarls and barks were overlaid with smoothly accented Galactic; a translator was in use.

Susan recognised the challenge.

If they wanted things to be difficult, so be it.

Susan let loose a string of chiming lilting syllables that precisely identified her alone and that made the velociraptor's head rear back.

"Time Lady," Susan finished, and glared at the dinosaurs.

There was agitated movement among them, roaring back and shoving and making alarmed twitters.

Their leader whirled and snapped its jaws at the others, displaying deadly teeth in a threatening gesture.

Susan waited coldly.

A second velociraptor moved forward to stand parallel to the one at the head of the pack. Two leaders.

"The Time Lords are dead!" it barked.

"Not all of us." Susan glared with the weight of centuries behind her gaze. "You know what we are. What we can do. Do you dare risk annihilation?"

There was a low snark, and the lead dinosaurs sprang.

Susan let Time stretch out instantly, blurring into a drab watercolour landscape again as she stepped sideways. She brought the gun up and fired twice, and dor an instant the possibilities surrounded her in golden threads.

She tweaked a few almost as an afterthought.

Once again the moments slammed back into a cohesive web of time.

The two aliens landed where she had been standing, and collapsed limply, eyes staring and blood pulsing out across the bitumen.

This was too much for the others. The packs exploded into chaos, pushing and snapping at each other, and reforming to move swiftly back to the ship.

Susan waited, staring up at the spacecraft.

"Ma'am?" It was a soldier.

Susan held up a hand to stop him.

She watched stoically as the ship hummed and began to rotate before lifting up and flashing out towards the sky.

Susan let go of her hold on Time and threads snapped all around her, sending her into a dizzying spin of instants.

Darkness.

-

**END CHAPTER**

* * *


	2. Torn Threads

**Title**: Time In Blue

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary: **Susan survived the Time War. Now in the aftermath, she does her best to live.

**Setting: **After the Time War, before and during series one of New Who. Spoilers for Seventh Doctor story _Battlefield_ in this, but not that many. Quite a few references to Classic Who, although you should be able to understand the fic even if you've never seen those episodes.

* * *

**TIME IN BLUE**

**CHAPTER TWO**

**TORN THREADS**

* * *

Susan regained consciousness to find herself in the infirmary at U.N.I.T. headquarters. Her head hurt like anything.

There was none of the '_who am I / where am I / what happened_' that some people experience when they recover from passing out. Susan knew exactly what she had done.

It scared the Dickens out of her.

Time Lords, despite their reputation among other species, were not godlike beings with phenomenal cosmic powers over all of time and space.

Well, they had been once, over a million years before, but their talents were too strong and chaotic, and so by common consent they blocked their abilities and put measures in place to ensure they remained lost. For almost all of written history a Time Lord was simply a being with a very sensitive time-sense, who existed in a few extra dimensions and possessed a near-negligible ability to stretch or speed up time by a second or so, and had developed some interesting time-oriented technology. The rest was Time Lord propaganda.

What Susan had done should have been impossible.

She frowned, perturbed, and wondered if the Time War had affected her in ways she hadn't suspected. It made sense; it was, after all, the greatest and most terrible of the Time Wars, so if ever the conditioning that suppressed Time Lord abilities was going to fail, it was most likely to happen then.

Susan methodically removed the monitor sensors from where they had been placed on her body, and mentally thanking whoever had left her clothes on her set forth in search of a cup of tea.

-

Halfway into a pot of tea and an apple turnover Bambera approached Susan and sat in the seat opposite.

The Major General stated at her a moment.

"Can you spare some of that turnover?"

Susan obligingly tore off a big piece and handed it to her.

"What happened with the dinosaurs?" Bambera asked.

"They'd heard of Time Lords," Susan explained succinctly. "And then everything on their ship that could possibly go wrong began to do so, and they thought it would be a good time to leave."

Bambera gave her a look.

"I don't suppose you're going to explain exactly what you did out there or why it made you collapse, are you?"

Susan stared at her tea.

"Not really. I… well, what I did is impossible. Literally. I don't know what it means."

"Sometimes I forget you're an alien," Bambera muttered.

Susan stared at her in surprise.

"Other times it's like you've got a sign on your forehead," Bambera finished. _That_ was more like the Major General, Susan thought, amused and slightly relieved.

Bambera met Susan's eyes steadily.

"Good job, Foreman."

"Thank you, Major General."

Together they finished the pot of tea.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Susan was surprised to find herself invited to a birthday party later that week.

Corporal Perks was a pleasant young woman, very competent and with a sly sense of humour, and Susan often stopped to chat to her.

"I'm having a birthday party in a few weeks," Perks said suddenly one day, "and if it's not impertinent, ma'am, I was wondering if you would like to come."

"To your birthday party?" Susan was touched and delighted.

"Yes ma'am. I'm turning twenty-five on the 29th." Perks paused, and gave a slight smirk. "It's fancy-dress, and the theme is other planets."

Susan felt an amused smile take over her face.

"I'd love to come, Corporal."

"Very good, ma'am. I'll arrange and invitation for you," Perks said cheerfully.

-

Susan turned up two weeks later at the address on the invitation, and rang the doorbell.

The door opened and loud music blasted out.

Corporal Perks stood in the doorway, Susan noted, in a shiny silver minidress and silver boots, with a giant fake silver gun strapped to one hip, and blue hair.

"That's an interesting costume, Corporal," Susan said with a bemused smirk.

Perks grinned cheerfully.

"Thanks. Call me Polly, Ms Foreman."

"Susan," Susan corrected, smiling.

"Susan," Polly accepted the correction, "your costume's not bad, either."

Susan had, after some thought, dressed as a priestess of the Cult of Truth, which had existed for a couple of millennia on a small planet near the galactic core.

She wore a yellow-white dress with wide bell sleeves, sinched in at the waist by a wide gold belt decorated with a large blue oval. The sleeves and neckline were hemmed with a strip of pale blue material embroidered with tiny gold runes.

The overall look was to any human who saw it rather like a melding of ancient Egyptian and traditional Japanese garments. It had taken Susan quite some time to put it together.

"Thank you," she replied. "It took some time to make."

"You made it yourself?" Polly looked impressed.

Susan smiled mischievously.

"My two boys were always tearing their clothes," she explained. "I got used to sewing things."

Polly looked astonished.

"You have kids?"

"They're adults now," Susan said. "With children of their own." She held out a wrapped parcel. "Happy birthday."

"Oh!" Polly realised she was still barring the doorway and moved aside. "Thanks. Come in, Susan."

-

The house was full of people in different costumes. There were a few more women dressed in short shiny dresses like Polly's. Someone was wandering around dressed as a Jedi Knight, someone else was green. There was a girl dressed a lot like an ancient Egyptian (a Go'uald, Susan learned later) an assortment of other costumes Susan couldn't identify, and a number of people in form-fitting red-and-black uniforms that Susan vaguely recognised as Star Trek.

There was also, to Susan's bemusement, a man with an authentic Torchwood I.D. pinned to his coat, which appeared to be a well-worn World War II-era military greatcoat.

"Has anyone worked out that you really _are_ Torchwood?" Susan asked as she approached.

The man grinned.

"You're the first. Everyone else thinks I came with Gort and Klaatu over there. Nice party, by the way." He scrutinised her. "You know, I think we've met before. Or will meet, maybe."

"It's possible," Susan replied. "Do you usually gate-crash U.N.I.T. parties?"

He grinned at her again.

"Only the good ones. It's Captain Jack Harkness, like the I.D. says, in case you were wondering."

"Not really." The Captain was putting out a strong charm, clearly trying to attract, but Susan was on a completely different wavelength. She was, however, well-acquainted enough with humanity to realise what he was doing.

"Ouch," Harkness commented. "Judging by the fact that the flirting is clearly not working, and that you're the only person in the room whose costume looks even vaguely like it's authentic extraterrestrial, I'm gonna ask: alien?"

Susan smiled mischievously.

"Well done."

"Oh, so it's _intelligence_ that turns you on," the Captain mused aloud. "That's where I was going wrong. Good to know."

Susan couldn't help the gurgling laugh that escaped her.

She got a sunny smile in return, full of perfect white teeth.

"You feel like dancing?"

Susan was too amused to say no. She was further amused when Harkness led her into a snappy jive instead of the bump'n'grind everyone else was doing.

He was an extremely good dancer, Susan noted appreciatively, and felt slightly sorry for him; if she'd been human, she probably would have been highly attracted to him by this point.

"I'm going to take a break," Susan told the Captain, laughing, "but I'm sure that Sergeant Mathers would love to take over for me."

When introduced, Bonnie Mathers was quite happy to replace her, and so Susan was able to make her way across the room to the punch.

Susan's nose wrinkled in disgust at the strong, oily taste; someone had spiked the punch with vodka.

"Susan!" Polly exclaimed, appearing out of the throng and descending upon her. "Thanks so much for the CD. It only came out this week, I hadn't had a chance to buy it yet."

"I know you like them," Susan smiled, "so I thought you'd want their new album. I don't want to trouble you, Polly, but someone's spiked the punch."

"Bollocks!" Polly swore. "Thanks, Susan. Any idea what with?"

"Vodka." Susan considered this. "_Cheap_ vodka."

She caught the look Polly gave her.

"I have different sensory perceptions to the rest of you," Susan explained, shrugging.

"Right, sometimes I forget." Polly carried the punch bowl into the kitchen and emptied the tainted punch down the sink, Susan following. "I mean, take a look at the science nerds we've got working for us and you're the _normal_ one."

"I think I'm flattered, although I'm not entirely sure whether that was a compliment directed at me, or an insult at U.N.I.T.'s scientific team."

When the pair of them returned to the main room with a fresh bowl of punch, there was a young girl in a Star Trek uniform standing on the table proclaiming herself Emperor of the Multiverse.

"I think you've had enough, sweetheart," Captain Jack lifted her down much to her displeasure, "if I were you I'd find a quiet corner somewhere to sober up."

The Star Trek girl let out a string of abuse, made an obscene gesture and staggered off.

Harkness shook his head and went off to chat up a girl in a purple wig.

-

After another hour or so pretty much everyone was drunk but for Susan.

Watching the idiocy going on around her, Susan was glad of her ability to control her metabolism.

She sought out Polly and said her goodbyes, and made her way outside to her car.

"Hey!" Star Trek girl appeared at the car window.

Susan looked around in dismay as the drunk girl opened one of the rear door and toppled onto the back seat.

"Cannugimmealif?" Star Trek girl slurred.

"Where do you live?" Susan sighed.

Star Trek girl thought for a moment.

"Dunno."

Susan sighed again and started the car.

**o0o o0o o0o**

After dropping a very ill (and extremely embarrassed) Star Trek girl home the next morning, Susan returned to her flat to consider what to do about how she had dealt with the velociraptors.

At least some of it was due to the condition of Time, Susan thought. The Time War had left it damaged and torn. To Susan, the wrongness sang out like a discordant multitude of wrong notes, a constant off-key hum of grave injury. Time was torn and twisted, so that it wasn't nearly as difficult to bend it or stretch it as it should have been.

The only way to fix it was to travel around, fixing every nexus point, but without a TARDIS or even a decent time machine there wasn't anything Susan could do about it. The holes and shattered places would have to remain for the time being.

As for Susan's unsettling ability to manipulate Time the way she now apparently could, Susan still had barely a clue as to where it had come from.

Susan sighed. She'd been putting it off for months, but what she really needed to do was salvage what she could from the remains of her TARDIS.

-

The dead TARDIS resembled a charred, burnt-out skeleton of a tree, brittle and lifeless with its blackened branches starkly bare. It looked distinctly odd standing against the wall of room Artefact Storage Five.

The console room was swathed in darkness but for the light of the lamp Susan had brought with her. The air was heavy and stale and carried the taste of ash.

Susan crossed the room to the doorway and looked through. Where there had previously been a labyrinth of corridors, there was simply one long hallway with two dozen or so doors along its length.

It was as Susan had expected; without a power source and the consciousness of the TARDIS to maintain them, the internal dimensions were slowly collapsing.

Susan cautiously opened the nearest door and looked in. It proved to be the kitchen, which was unlikely to hold anything Susan wanted to rescue.

It was quite dangerous, what Susan was doing. By this point, the internal dimensions of a TARDIS had collapsed enough to become unstable, and if Susan was particularly unlucky then they could suddenly collapse completely, which would be a thoroughly unpleasant way to die – if such an end could be accurately described as dying. There had been some debate on the subject.

If possible, Susan preferred not to find out personally.

The library turned out to be four doors down, and Susan noted with consternation that it had already begun to shrink. That meant it was unstable here indeed, but some of the books in here were now unique in the universe.

Moving quickly and carefully, Susan began removing the most priceless Gallifreyan tomes. When she had as many as she could carry, she walked speedily back to the TARDIS entrance and dumped the books in the artefact room before going back for more.

Susan soon realised that she needed something more efficient.

Closing the TARDIS door behind her firmly, Susan went searching for something she could use to move a lot of books at once. In the end she borrowed a wheelbarrow from the gardener, filling it with a clean rubbish bag that would protect the books from the wheelbarrow's dirt.

Returning to the TARDIS, Susan noted with dismay that the corridor was now two doors shorter.

Swearing under her breath, she ran to the end of the corridor, pulling the wheelbarrow behind her, to check the rooms there.

One of them was her bedroom. Swearing some more, Susan shoved its few valuables into the wheelbarrow and left her bedroom hurriedly. Pushing the wheelbarrow back to the door into the console room, Susan checked the rest of the rooms to see whether they contained anything she wanted to rescue. There were a few useful devices in the parts room, but nothing else.

Susan returned to the library and continued saving every valuable book she could.

At the end of two hours most of the contents of the library had been relocated to Artefact Storage Five and the corridor beyond it. Satisfied, Susan exited with a final wheelbarrow-load of books.

And found herself standing at the end of the hallway with its single door.

For a moment Susan was frozen in horror to find the rest of the hallway gone. Then she ran for the console room and fled into the safety of Artefact Storage Five.

Then she firmly locked the TARDIS door, and went in search of a reassuring cup of tea to calm her nerves.

-

In the refectory, Susan contemplated the near-miss. She was lucky the library hadn't collapsed along with the other rooms next to it. If she'd stayed any longer, it undoubtedly would have.

Susan sternly told herself that she'd been incredibly stupid. She should have collected her things from the TARDIS as soon as U.N.I.T. had released her from the infirmary all those months ago, but instead she'd kept procrastinating until enough time had passed to make entering the TARDIS very risky. It was sheer luck that Susan had escaped unscathed.

All because of stupid sentiment. Her TARDIS was dead. She shouldn't have been squeamish about it. It was a moronic mistake.

"Is there a reason Artefact Storage Five and the hallway next to it are filled with alien books?"

Susan started, not having noticed Bambera's approach.

Bambera frowned at her reaction.

"You're as keyed-up as when you first got here," she noted. "What happened?"

Ignoring the reference to the War, Susan took a deep breath and explained.

"Rather stupidly, I've put off getting my things from the TARDIS until now. But it gave the interior dimensions time to deteriorate, and I was almost caught in their further collapse."

Bambera gave Susan a look.

"I nearly got myself killed because I went in the TARDIS after it had months to break down inside," Susan simplified patiently.

_PainpainpiainburningfireohRassilonpaingriefburnburnburndespairpainanguish –_

The searing emotions dimmed as whoever it was lost consciousness.

Susan put a hand to her head, the telepathic connection throbbing, and stared up at Bambera from where she'd fallen to the floor, her face white.

"Someone else's survived the Time War. They need to be found. _Now_."

-

END CHAPTER

* * *

**Author notes:**

_Dun-Dun-Dunnn!_

_I have flu, so there's probably a buncha typos in here, but I don't care. Hope you liked the Unexpected Captain Jack cameo..._


	3. Nexus Point

**Title**: Time In Blue

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel

**Story Summary: **Susan survived the Time War. Now in the aftermath, she does her best to live.

**Setting: **After the Time War, before and during series one of New Who. Spoilers for Seventh Doctor story _Battlefield_ in this, but not that many. Quite a few references to Classic Who, although you should be able to understand the fic even if you've never seen those episodes.

* * *

**TIME IN BLUE**

**CHAPTER THREE**

**NEXUS POINT**

**

* * *

  
**

Susan stared incredulously as the jeep pulled up.

There, sitting blackened and half-buried in its own personal crater, was a familiar blue police box.

Susan was out of the jeep before she knew it, racing across the intervening ground and skittering down the side of the crater to fling herself inside the TARDIS.

Inside it was dark, red light faintly illuminating an organic-looking interior as an ominous bell tolled.

Susan looked around desperately. Rounding the console, she stopped short at the sight of the figure collapsed on the floor. She checked his pulse and other vital signs. He was stable, for the moment.

Susan began flicking switches and turning dials.

"End Tim War protocols," she ordered vocally and mentally. "Transfer to standard Gallifreyan protocols."

She could have cried at the presences within her mind after all these empty months. Her grandfather's touch was deeply traumatised, and the TARDIS wasn't much better off.

Susan stuck her head outside and gestured to the men by the army ambulance.

"He needs medical attention urgently," Susan called. "You'll need a stretcher; he's unconscious. I've disabled the TARDIS defences, so you should be able to come in and get him without any problems."

Susan watched, full of conflicting emotions, as her grandfather was loaded onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance. The TARDIS was still only dimly lit by red, and the cloister bell still tolled, despite the adjustments Susan had made, reflecting the Doctor's condition.

Susan bit her lip worriedly and shutting the TARDIS door, gave the TARDIS the coordinates for U.N.I.T. headquarters.

She gave a sigh of relief as the TARDIS phased out and re-materialised at the correct destination despite the state it was in.

She patted the console reassuringly.

"We'll have Grandfather fixed up in no time," Susan told the old girl comfortingly, "and then we'll do our best to help you get back in order."

Susan left the TARDIS to wait for her grandfather's arrival in the infirmary.

**o0o o0o o0o**

It took a week for the Doctor to regain consciousness, but the TARDIS was back to normal within a day or so, so Susan wasn't overly concerned. In the meantime she did what she could for the TARDIS, replacing parts, rewiring the console, and recalibrating for a new power source.

That particular problem had Susan stumped at first. Every TARDIS had been powered by the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey, but from the fact that the TARDIS was no longer able to absorb power from it, Susan deduced that it had perished with the Time Lords.

At first Susan wasn't sure what could possibly act as a replacement, but after a couple of days she had a brilliant idea.

Over in Cardiff there had once been a rift in time and space. It had been closed, more or less, but continued to emit energy. The Cardiff branch of Torchwood had chosen to build their headquarters just above the rift, and while Susan didn't know for certain – despite being in the same business, so to speak, relations between U.N.I.T. and Torchwood were rather frosty – Susan strongly suspected that they used the energy for their own benefit in some way.

While not the same as the energy from the Eye of Harmony, rift energy was close enough that Susan was able, over the course of four busy days, to convert the TARDIS to accept rift energy as a power source. It wasn't a brilliant job, Susan readily admitted to both herself and the TARDIS, but it would do until the Doctor could fix it up properly.

Susan spent several hours in Cardiff, letting the TARDIS 'recharge,' and taking a bit of a break, before returning to U.N.I.T. to check on her still-unconscious grandfather.

A day after that, the Doctor woke up.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Susan entered the infirmary cautiously, not sure what to expect.

"Susan?"

The Doctor's voice was raw with emotion as he stared at her with broken blue eyes, as though he couldn't believe it.

Susan ran to his bedside and threw herself at his chest.

She felt his arms wrap around her. He was trembling.

"I thought you were dead," Susan said into his shoulder.

"I thought I was too." His voice was raspy, still affected by the effects of his violent regeneration, but had a distinctive Northern England accent.

Susan sat back a little to get a good look at her grandfather.

He looked as British as he sounded. A prominent nose, slightly hawk-like gaze, and big ears; it was a peculiarly English combination of features.

As she took in his new appearance, he was surveying hers.

He put a hand up to tug lightly at a lock of her hair.

"The bob's back again," he observed.

Susan smiled a little.

"It's growing out. You, on the other hand, have almost no hair at all."

The Doctor looked startled and ran a hand over his bristly scalp.

"Explain's why my head's cold."

"Grandfather – what _happened?_" Susan burst out.

He closed his eyes in pain.

"The Daleks got Pan Gallifreya. A few months, relatively speaking, after the fall of Arcadia –"

"Arcadia _fell?_" Susan put her hand to her mouth. "We were winning when my TARDIS was hit!"

"They brought in another fleet," the Doctor explained wearily. "We were massively overwhelmed and had to retreat. Anyway, they seized control of Pan Gallifreya, and after that it was only a matter of time before they got Gallifrey, During the first assault, the President initiated Level One Hostile Occupation protocols, and I was ordered to carry out Operation Doomsday."

"Grandfather?" Susan had to know.

"The strategic destruction of the Eye of Harmony," he said, and bowed his head.

Susan stared in horror.

"You – you –" The words didn't want to come. "But the Eye of Harmony, it didn't just – it preserved our _history_, you mean –"

"I didn't just destroy Gallifrey," the Doctor said heavily. "I erased its existence and our actions from the timestream."

Susan could only stare at him, aghast.

"That's why Time's in such a mess – you couldn't possibly erase the Time Lords' existence entirely, not simply by destroying the Eye of Harmony. So even though the Time Lords never existed, the echo of the previous timeline –"

"– is strong enough to affect the current one," the Doctor finished. "I was close enough to the singularity at the time that the secondary wave of effect didn't affect me –"

"…which is why I'm alive, as well," Susan finished slowly.

Her grandfather wasn't making an effort to shield his mind; she could feel the horror, the guilt, the anguish and revulsion burning from him.

"I love you Grandfather," Susan put a hand on his, "and I always will, but I need to think about this."

She squeezed his hand, and let go, leaving the room without looking back at the defeated, broken man on the bed.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Susan hid in the TARDIS, needing an opportunity to think about and process everything her grandfather had told her.

She sat by the console in the new, strange console room, her arms around her knees and her head tilted back to rest against the console surface.

Her grandfather had retroactively annihilated the Time Lords. Fact.

Her grandfather had worse than murdered their entire species, slaughtering them all before they were even born. Emotion.

The President had ordered him to do so, because they had lost the war and the results of the Daleks becoming the dominant unchallenged power in the universe would be catastrophic. Fact.

That bitch had deliberately put the burden on her grandfather's shoulders, knowing how tormented by guilt he would be – _emotion_ – because she knew he always did the right thing. Fact.

When you came down to it, it wasn't the right thing, but it was the best out of a norrow choice of wrong ones.

Truth.

Susan sighed and reached out mentally to the TARDIS.

The Doctor's TARDIS was an older model, deemed obsolete, ancient even by Gallifrey's standards. Later models conversed in perfect Gallifreyan, and obeyed commands implicitly, but the Doctor's TARDIS was a capricious, strong-willed being quite capable of ignoring her Time Lord's wishes, and with an active independent intelligence that had been bred out of the later ones.

Susan and the Doctor had always shared a unique bond with the old ship; she was the only one left of the autonomous TARDISes, and the two Time Lords were just as different from their compatriots as she was from any modern TARDIS.

The TARDIS might have been considered inferior in its ability to communicate by the standards of other Time Lords, but Susan always understood the stream of emotions/concepts it used instead of speech without a problem, and valued the TARDIS' affection more than she would mere conversation.

Right now, the TARDIS was grateful for the contact. She was hurting and grieving as well, but right now her main concern was for the Doctor. He was in such agony…

"I know," Susan said sorrowfully. "But I can't talk to him yet. Not like this."

Without moving from her position on the console room floor, Susan curled into a ball, thinking about all that had happened and trying to figure out how she felt about it.

-

She was woken by a niggling feeling from the TARDIS, to find herself in her old bedroom.

She blinked in surprise as she surveyed all her old things, most of them forgotten until now, before following the TARDI promptings.

Susan peered into the wardrobe room. Clothes were flying in all directions. As she watched there was a triumphant "perfect!" and the flinging of clothes abruptly stopped.

Susan rounded a clothes rack to see her grandfather trying on a leather jacket.

"What do you think?" he asked, turning to face her.

Susan tried to choke back laughter.

"You look like a bovver-boy," she giggled.

"Oh, that's nice," he grouched.

"You do!" Susan continued to giggle. "Look in the mirror!"

The Doctor did so.

"Alright, maybe I do," he conceded. "Maybe I should try something else."

Susan shook her head.

"It suits you."

He gave her an intense stare.

"Are you saying my personality's like that of a bovver-boy?" he demanded.

Susan dissolved into laughter again.

"No I am not, as you very well know. Stop teasing, Grandfather."

She stepped closer to him, and looked up into his eyes.

"You did the right thing," she said quietly and with sincerity.

His casual facade broke as the pain rushed into his eyes.

"Susan, I –"

"Don't," she scolded him softly. "Don't try and convince me you're some kind of monster, because I won't believe you. Listen to me. I forgive you, because you did the one thing that could be done, that _needed_ to be done."

His muscles were taut as bow strings. Susan wrapped him in a hug, and finally he broke down, burying his face in her hair and letting the sobs come.

**o0o o0o o0o**

For the next week the Doctor continued recuperating at U.N.I.T. headquarters. The medical staff insisted on monitoring his recovery, much to his annoyance. But the senior doctor had dealt with far more recalcitrant patients, and the Doctor found himself getting a checkup every morning despite ranting away about little apes and the comparative superiority of Time Lord physiology.

The rest of the time on base the Doctor spent, as Bambera put it, "being a nuisance."

He wandered around commenting on things, dispensing unwanted advice to U.N.I.T. scientists, and making unhelpful observations at inconvenient times.

"Your grandfather is driving me bonkers," Bambera said bluntly when Susan stepped into her office. "I thought he was bad enough last time, but he's worse. Tell him he can tinker with his own equipment, but he's to leave U.N.I.T.'s bloody well alone."

"I have, and he's promised not to dismantle anything else, although Parker says that the molecular scanner he built is really quite useful," Susan told her. "I'd like to go on leave."

"Going to travel with the Doctor?" Bambera raised an eyebrow.

"I'll come back," Susan assured her mildly. "But he really ought not to be left alone at the moment, so I'm planning to travel with him for a while, until he's sorted himself out a bit. And he does travel in a time machine. I can be back at more or less the same time I leave."

The Major General let out a long sigh.

"Very well. But I want you back as soon as possible. Between you and me, you're one of the best people we have, and I've been considering putting you in charge of the scientific team."

"I much prefer being a consultant," Susan protested. "If I were in charge I'd have to organise everything including people, and I'm no good at human inter relations."

Bambera snorted.

"Very well." She coughed. "I've been meaning to ask..."

"Major General?" Susan was curious.

"Ancelyn's got a fencing tournament on Wednesday, so Gwyneth's going to be on base for the day. I was wondering if you'd mind making sure she doesn't get into too much trouble, as a personal favour. I'm usually too busy to keep a proper eye on her, and last time we tried getting a babysitter she climbed out the window and hid in next door's garden."

"I'd be happy to," Susan promised.

"Thanks."

Bambera looked relieved.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Thus, two days later Susan found herself unofficial minder of her superior's daughter.

Somehow, a quick visit to one of the labs turned into an educational lecture on incendiary chemistry.

"Grandfather, this is inappropriate for a human child her age," Susan glared at him, "the Major General's going to kill me."

"It's perfectly safe," the Doctor protested.

"It's encouraging her. Honestly Grandfather, this is why I had the strangest upbringing of anyone I've ever known. Your ideas of appropriate experiences for a child don't match those of anyone else in the universe. Teach her something else."

"Right," the Doctor turned to Gwyneth, who was looking disgruntled at the end to the explosions, "how 'bout I teach you why a spoon will stick to your nose, and we can grab a bite to eat."

Gwyneth brightened with interest.

"Okay."

They moved to the refectory, where the Doctor swiped some teaspoons and taught Gwyneth how to hang a spoon from the tip of her nose. Susan demonstrated as well, until the little girl got the hang of it. IT was at this point that Bambera entered the refectory.

She stared at the two aliens and the small child, each with a spoon hanging from their nose.

"What in blazes?"

"It's a matter of suction and balance, Mum," Gwyneth volunteered. "Merlin taught me. Can I have a muffin?"

"Yes," Bambera allowed. Gwyneth snatched the spoon from her nose and skipped off.

"Grab me a banana muffin while you're at it," the Doctor called after her.

Bambera shook her head and sat down next to Susan.

"Your request for leave's been officially approved," she told Susan. "It's from this Friday until the thirteenth, although if you're back earlier you're welcome to cut it short. Don't go over if you can help it."

"You're going on leave?" the Doctor questioned.

Susan nodded.

"I want to travel with you, of course."

"But only for a while." It was clear he didn't like the idea at all.

"You know I like a bit of stability in between adventures, Grandfather," she reminded him, "and after the Time War I think I've had enough adventure for quite a long time. So I'll travel with you, but then I want to return here."

Her grandfather was still frowning.

"A muffin, Merlin! And for you, my lady!" Gywneth announced, handing the Doctor and Susan each a banana muffin with a flourish.

"I'll leave you to it," Bambera said, rising, as the Doctor asked,

"Would you like to hear a story with some pirates in it?"

"Will there be swords?" Gwyneth wanted to know.

""Course. Can't have a story 'bout pirates without swords in it."

Susan settled back to hear the tale of the Doctor's encounter with a ship of bloodthirsty pirates, reflecting that no matter what else had changed, her grandfather's relationship with trouble was just the same.

-

**END CHAPTER**

**

* * *

**

**Author notes:**

_Ages between chapters, I know! Sorry. The next chapter is still in progress – it's going to be about twice as long as the previous ones._


	4. Aberration

**Title**: Time In Blue

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel

**Story Summary: **Susan survived the Time War. Now in the aftermath, she does her best to live.

**Setting: **After the Time War, before and during series one of New Who. Spoilers for Seventh Doctor story _Battlefield_ in this, but not that many. Quite a few references to Classic Who, although you should be able to understand the fic even if you've never seen those episodes.

**Author note:**

_Crossover alert. See the end of this chapter for info._

_Also I must thank _Wiggiemomsi_, who has been incredibly patient about this story and has not sent me angry emails or anything despite my total lack of act-togetherness. She won this fic in the author auctions ages ago, and I've been really slow getting it out._

* * *

**TIME IN BLUE**

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**ABERRATION**

* * *

When he'd first seen the reconfigurations Susan had put in place, the Doctor had spent some time going "what have you _done?_" in disbelieving tones, before spending several hours improving Susan's slapdash work, muttering things like "look at these connections" and "this is an artron conductor, Susan, what'd you use _it_ for? And endothermic converter would've been much better."

Susan had listened to all his strictures, pointing out that her education had been somewhat hit-and-miss since she had after all been forced to rely on his teaching rather than attending the academy, which started another argument about his ability to educate, before she made console adjustments according to his instruction.

On Friday, however, Susan joined her Grandfather in a TARDIS that had been modified more or less to his satisfaction, although he still spent a lot of his time repairing minor damage and maladjustments that had occurred during the war.

"Right. Shall we get on with it then?"

"I'm ready. It'll be rather nice to travel in the old girl again, just you and me," Susan observed, looking pensively around the console room. She still wasn't used to its current appearance.

At this point a chorus of voices singing "_let's do the time warp again!_" blared unexpectedly from the console.

Susan let out a gurgle of laughter at the look her grandfather was giving the heart of the machine.

"Does she do that often?" she managed.

"Not for a while, no." The Doctor was frowning. "Did it quite a bit during my last regeneration – think it was Iris' fault, somehow – just played music at odd moments that had something to do with what we were talking about at the time. At one point she was playing '_Cherry, Cherry_' every time we rematerialised, definitely Iris' fault that one, and me an my companion ended up with the lyrics permanently engraved to our brains. Got rid of that eventually, I'm glad to say."

By the end of this story Susan was smiling.

"I expect she did it to liven things up a bit," she said.

"Iris or the TARDIS?" the Doctor wanted to know.

"Both of them."

He snorted at the idea.

"I can do without that kind of enlivening, thanks. So, where you want to go?"

Susan considered.

"Barcelona, I think," she decided. "The planet, that is."

"Righty-o, then. Barcelona it is."

As the time rotor began moving up and down, a fragment of song played.

Susan laughed and sang along.

"'_Cause I'm a wanderer, yeah I'm a wanderer, I roam around around around around…_"

"Cheeky," the Doctor told his ship as the materialisation, and the music, ended.

Susan grinned at him.

"But truthful."

Together, he in his leather jacket, black trousers and dark jumper, she in a light summer dress and neat red blazer, they opened the TARDIS doors and stepped out.

-

Susan had always liked Barcelona.

She liked its wide, paved streets, its attractive architecture, the colour of its places and people. The main influence on the planet was supposedly Spanish, but in reality Barcelona had been inspired by a wide range of cultures. There were vast neo-classical buildings of warm-toned sandstone, with elegant columns and intricately-carved pediments. There were towering faceted structures of glass and steel, that glittered like crystal in the bright sunlight. There were market squares filled with interesting stores, and public gardens, their styles ranging from English to Japanese, and wild patches of rainforest.

Susan's favourite area of Barcelona was_ La Ciudad de Angeles_ – The City of Angels. It was an area that consisted mostly of neo-classical buildings and pedestrian-only streets, with garden squares here and there.

The city's name came form the fact that along both sides of most of its main streets were lined life-sized statues of angels, spaced roughly ten metres apart. They were incredibly lifelike and each had a different pose and expression.

One of Barcelona's original colonists had been a very wealthy man; during the construction of La Ciudad de Angeles he had hired a renounced artist to produce the statues. Given a generous salary, the artist spent the next decade carving the statues and eventually settled permanently in the area himself. Many of his statues had been modelled on the city's first settlers, hence their life-like and distinctive appearances. The city had later been name for their unique decorations. They were now a strong tourist attraction.

Last time Susan was here she had found a statue of a young man, dressed in a long coat and trousers. His gaze was mild and quizzical, yet with his right hand he wielded a sword and his pose was vigilant, his wings curving back so that he could move swiftly without them getting in the way. Susan had met that particular regeneration only once, but recognised him easily all the same.

She had wondered what her grandfather had done to prompt the artist to give his representation the sword and the watchful pose.

Susan mentioned the statue now, and her grandfather grinned.

"Bit of a _contremps_ with one of the locals. But you think that's interesting, you should see the one outside the city courts."

"Oh?"

"Come on, we'll pay it a visit." The Doctor set off down the nearest street, and Susan walked quickly to catch up with him.

As they drew near the courthouse the Doctor pointed at something near the secondary entrance.

"There we go. Take a look."

It was a statue of not one, but two angels. The first was of an older man in dressed in a frockcoat and trousers and holding a cane, his wings curving around him in a reserved way. His expression and bearing were imperious and autocratic; he had a decidedly unapproachable look to him.

Beside him was a very small girl clad in an indiscriminate array of vaguely Edwardian clothing and Ancient Egyptian adornments, wings askew, one hand clutching at the older angel's as her bright little face glowed with interest and excitement. Together they made an odd, contradictory yet complementary pair.

Susan stared at the two angels, stunned.

"I didn't think we did anything noteworthy here," she said eventually.

"I didn't, you did," the Doctor corrected. "They'd just opened a museum full of stuff they'd bought from Earth for a fortune, and you dismantled an antique remote surveyor from the first survey of Barcelona coz you wanted to see how it worked."

Susan stared at her grandfather in mingled horror and embarrassment.

"Oh Grandfather, tell me I didn't."

"Nope. You did. Sorry." His air was matter-of-fact, but Susan recognised the damned twinkle in his eyes. "They let you off for being a kid, but I had to repair for its reconstruction. Not cheap, either; not many people left who knew how to put one of those together."

"It wasn't real money anyway," Susan said, a little waspishly. "You just manipulated their account to show a credits transfer."

"True." They gazed at the statues for a moment longer. "You want to head off to the markets?"

"I suppose."

-

At the markets, Susan tried on a dress made from gold thread, which her grandfather mostly liked but thought was perhaps a bit gaudy. Susan pointed out that just because _he_ couldn't do fancy, with those ears, didn't mean that _she_ couldn't, and they got into a playful argument that lasted until their attention was caught by an escalating fight.

A four-armed blue woman was facing off against a purple-haired girl wearing red-and-black striped socks and the raiment of a priestess of Eris.

"Come on then," the blue woman taunted. "Unless you're too afraid, with your weak-arse old Earth god, full-skirts!"

"That's it," the priestess of Eris declared, armbands jangling with her angry gestures, "may Eris curse thee until your eyeballs fall out and insufferable mothers-in-law descend upon you! _Bring it!_"

With that she charged.

At first things looked fairly uneven – the blue woman had four arms, after all – but the priestess of Eris fought dirty, and luck seemed to be on her side. As the Doctor and Susan watched, the pair crashed into a nearby stall, so that several hard-shelled fruit crashed into the blue-skinned woman's head, but a saucepan fell at the priestess' feet.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but after a glance between the cooking instrument and the blue woman, the priestess picked it up and hit her enemy over the head with it.

The blue woman collapsed.

"Charge all damage to this woman," the priestess announced. She wasn't finished yet, however; in front of the interested crowd, she fished out a marker from within her robes, and drew a moustache and other interesting facial additions on her fallen foe. Then she tucked the marker away, dusted her hands off in a satisfied fashion, and walked off as though she owned the marketplace.

The Doctor met Susan's look with one just as bemused as her own.

"Humans," he remarked.

"I wonder what that was all about?"

"Who knows. You going to buy that dress?" he nodded his head at the flowing gold dress Susan was wearing.

"I rather like it."

"Alright then, go get changed, and I'll sort it out."

Susan came out a few minutes later with the dress in her arms. It was carefully packed into a bag by the stall holder, and presented to her with a smile.

"Heard something interesting while you were trying on clothes," the Doctor observed.

"Oh?"

"A ship shaped like a giant globe's tethered to the sealine, over on the Cuidad de Angeles-Querida border. Nothing's come in nor out, the ship just bobs up and down with the tide."

Susan felt her eyebrows fly up in surprise.

"A Caleban, do you think?"

"Sounds like it." He gave her a goofy grin. "D'you want to go check it out?"

Her smile was blinding.

"Of _course_ I do!"

-

The globe was sitting on the sand, looking rather like an oversized beachball. When Susan and the Doctor arrived, it was surrounded by a cluster of curious children.

"Oi," the Doctor said, flashing some psychic paper, "all of you lot, clear off."

The children ran off, and the Doctor began to search the surface of the globe.

"There should be an extrusion somewhere, shouldn't there?" Susan asked, examining the surface as well.

"Yep," her grandfather replied.

They worked their way around, until Susan gave a triumphant cry.

"Aha! I found it!"

There was a definite bump in the globe's smooth surface. Susan's questing fingers pressed, and without warning part of the globe opened up. Grinning at each other, Susan and the Doctor stepped into the sweltering heat of the Caleban dwelling.

Put in simple terms, a Caleban was the manifested consciousness of a star, upon the same plane of existence that contains beings such as human and Time Lords.

A stellar consciousness of such manifestation was usually both extremely intelligent and highly educated, and tended to be well-disposed towards other beings. Time Lords had occasionally had traffic with them in the past, exchanging information for mutual expansion of understanding.

As Susan and her grandfather stood inside the vastly hot, dimly-lit structure, a voice called to them in Gallifreyan.

"Greetings," said the Caleban.

"You know that we're Time Lords?" Susan asked the unseen Caleban in surprise.

"I experience connectives."

"Connectives?"

"Nexus-points in space-time," the Doctor interposed. "The Calebans see them, I'll explain later."

"Correction; I do not see."

"I'm going for a rough approximation of accuracy here," the Doctor told the Caleban. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my granddaughter Susan."

"Hello," Susan agreed cheerfully.

A feeling of curious, pleased expectation hit them. As telepathic beings themselves, Susan and the Doctor were easily able to identify it as the Caleban's response.

"Discuss connectives," announced the Caleban. "You experience connectives?"

Susan thought about the question. The Doctor watched her reactions.

"I do," she replied honestly, "but probably rather differently to how you do."

"Very differently," the Doctor confirmed.

"But experience connectives," the Caleban reiterated. "Others do not experience connectives?"

"For the most part, no," the Doctor replied, "although there's a few species who can sense a nexus point here and there."

"Experience nodes?"

"Yep, that's right, some of 'em experience nodes."

"Fascinating." The Caleban's interest was palpably genuine.

Abruptly enormous sorrow flowed around their minds, flooding their senses.

"Achievement of ultimate discontinuity of Gallifrey noted. I express great sadness."

Susan could see the expression on her grandfather's face. Without asking she put a hand to one of the central telepathic points on his temple and bolstered him with reassuring, positive emotions even as she fought her own pain.

"You are causing distress!" Susan told the Caleban sharply, broadcasting an echo of her emotions to the alien.

The Caleban's sorrow cut off.

The Doctor took a deep breath, and strengthened his mental shields.

"I'm right now," he told Susan.

After giving them a moment to recover, the Caleban's feelings reached them again, softer and apologetic.

"Causation of distress was not intended."

"I know," the Doctor said quietly. "We're not offended."

He had his emotions under strict control, but a tendril of reassurance and understanding, and a tin amount of gratitude reached the Caleban.

Susan did the same. The Caleban's response was relieved, but still regretful.

"What are you doing on Barcelona?" Susan asked curiously, moving the conversation along.

"Communicating with Time Lords," was the prompt reply.

The Doctor grinned.

"What she means to say is, why did you choose to come to this planet?" he clarified.

The slight air of puzzlement vanished as the Caleban comprehended the point of the question.

"Experienced desire to communicate with humans," the Caleban explained. "I am unfamiliar with the species. I desire to learn from them."

"Good luck with that," the Doctor snorted.

"Please explain comment," the Caleban requested.

"He hopes you're successful," Susan translated, glaring at her grandfather. "I'm sure you will be. Humans are quite interesting," she said sincerely.

The Doctor muttered something.

"Which star are you?" Susan asked, ignoring his muttering.

"Please explain query." The Caleban didn't understand the question.

"Er–" Susan thought, trying to find a way to frame the question so that the Caleban would understand it, "can you identify your personal stellar mass, so that I can identify it as well?"

In reply the Caleban sent a flash of... Susan blinked as she absorbed the unique energy signature and spatial/temporal coordinates.

"Thank you," Susan said politely. It wouldn't really have occurred to her to identify a star by its energy output, but then she wasn't a star. To a Caleban it probably made more sense than anything else.

"Listen, we've got other things to do and see here, so we might head off," the Doctor announced. "It was fantastic to meet you, and I hope we do again, and we thank you for letting us come in an' talk to you."

"It pleases me to know you," the Caleban responded, radiating a wave of mild happiness.

"Us too!" Susan called out, as she and the Doctor left the globe.

The comparative cool of the crisp sea air was a shock as they stepped out of the heat and dark into the sunlight. The door sealed itself behind them.

"Well?" The Doctor watched Susan, waiting for her reaction.

Susan felt a wide grin stretch across her face. She gazed happily at him.

"I've met a Caleban!" she exclaimed, beaming. "I've actually conversed with a stellar consciousness!"

"Congratulations." Her grandfather was pleased by her delight.

"Have you ever met a Caleban before, Grandfather?" Susan questioned. "You seemed to know how to talk to them."

The Doctor snorted.

"Met one once before," he agreed. "Couldn't get a straight word out of it. Was infuriating. After that I read up on them in case I ever met another."

"You said that they see nexus points," Susan remembered something the Doctor had said earlier.

"Well, kinda." The Doctor reflected for a moment. "They see all the things that separate this universe from other universes, all the little differences. And most of those are nexus points."

"Is that why they like Time Lords so much?"

"That's part of it. We're a connective in ourselves. Plus we exist in more dimensions than most beings, so we're not just a point on a line. Not much more than that, mind, but a bit more."

"They see time and space as a line?" Susan asked, surprise.

"Yep. Higher beings if anything are, Calebans."

"I feel sorry for any humans that try to communicate with it," Susan remarked. "They're nto going to understand it at all, and they don't even have telepathy to help them along."

"Me, I feel sorry for the Caleban," the Doctor opined.

-

The two Time Lords went back to wandering the city. They were discussing neo-classical versus genuine classical architecture as they came to a large temple, modelled loosely on the style of an ancient Roman temple.

"Perfect example," the Doctor exclaimed, gesturing at it. "That's exactly what I mean."

"Hey peeps," a voice greeted them. "Would you like to come inside the temple?"

They glanced in the direction of the voice to see the purple-haired priestess from the fight in the marketplace.

"You are clearly one of Eris' Chosen," the priestess told the Doctor happily, running her eyes over him in an evaluating way. "The Threads of Chaos are all over you. As such, we would be honoured by your presence."

Susan and the Doctor exchanged glances.

"Why not."

They followed the priestess up the wide stone steps into the main hall of the temple. The priestess led them right to the back, where a golden statue stood on a podium.

It was a young woman in ancient Grecian dress. She stood proudly, holding a spear in one hand, with the other holding out an apple invitingly, her expression a triumphant, wicked smirk.

Susan and the Doctor looked up at the statue.

It was an excellent interpretation of a being who was supposed to represent chaos and discord.

"Looks a bit worrying, doesn't she?" the Doctor observed.

"I certainly wouldn't take that apple," Susan agreed.

The priestess laughed.

"It's not that bad," she told them, grinning. "It's actually kind of fun. Fun's good, right?"

"Depends on what kind of fun," the Doctor said dryly. "I prefer to avoid that sort."

The priestess laughed at him, as though he'd said something genuinely funny.

**o0o o0o o0o**

The Doctor was a bit grumpy after that, grumbling a little about cheeky apes. Susan suspected that he was only put out by the priestess' laughter because he knew quite well that she was right, and he _was_ a beacon for chaos.

"Where shall we go now?" Susan asked, back in the TARDIS.

"How 'bout Afarensis," her grandfather suggested briskly.

Susan remembered what the planet had done to the state of her shoes.

"No."

"Cliordia?"

"They'll try to arrest us the moment we say who we are, and you _know_ they'll ask. They're very big on security. Besides, totalitarian regimes aren't really my thing."

"So no to the Xanti Wars, then?"

"No."

The Doctor reflected.

"How about Earth then? You always like Earth. We could land a few centuries past your time."

'Your time' was of course a highly subjective term among Time Lords, but Susan knew what he meant.

"That sounds nice enough."

The Doctor input the coordinates and pulled the materialisation lever. The TARDIS promptly began playing '_Riders on the Storm_' by the Doors.

The Doctor's expression was rather like a thunderstorm itself.

Susan kept her face carefully straight, but patted the console in appreciation.

The Doctor glanced at the TARDIS controls and frowned with sudden alertness.

"Hang on, that's not right." He looked at the instrument readings, a little furrow of perplexity between his eyebrows. "It says the planet out there's uninhabitable."

Susan checked the coordinates.

"Well, this is definitely Earth."

Still frowning, the Doctor broadened the focus range of his equipment.

"Earth's completely uninhabited," he reported.

"Totally lifeless, except for the odd bacterium. No obvious signs of habitation for the rest of the solar system, either. Where've the humans gone?"

A few minutes later the Doctor's eyes widened in surprise.

"The rest of the galaxy, apparently. Well, this is wrong." He looked at Susan. "Shall we go investigate?"

**o0o o0o o0o**

Susan noticed it the moment they stepped out of the TARDIS.

Walking around was actually _painful_.

Susan could feel Time around her like a high-pitched whine. It was jagged and torn, more ripped apart than not, loose edges flapping where they'd come apart from the rest of the fabric of space-time.

It was horrendous.

Susan hadn't known such temporal destruction could exist, without annihilating that patch of space-time utterly. Time here was all jumbled up and discordant. Space-time was trying to heal over, but there were so many bits missing that it was connecting totally separate bits of time together, where in some cases they should have been entire centuries distant. It was a wonder all the sentients were sane.

Susan and her grandfather were surrounded by humans, however, and they seemed to be coping with things fairly well. Either they were oblivious on a level Susan hadn't thought possible, or they were resilient beyond imagining.

The Doctor leant against a wall.

"Gotta give humans more credit," he said, watching them go past with an expression on incredulity. "I wouldn't have thought anyone could stand this. Are they completely cut off from anything outside themselves?"

He glanced around, his expression more assessing.

"Nah. They feel it, all right. But it's not as bad for them, and they're ignoring it, the way humans do."

Susan could see it too. There was a restlessness, a subconscious uneasiness among the humans around them, not strong enough for the humans to be consciously aware of it, but present in almost every human they saw. They lacked a truly relaxed, carefree manner, and the way they dealt with each other was slightly tense even when they were being open.

Susan became ware that she was being watched. She turned to see a dark-haired girl, watched her with a blanked-out face an unblinking, inscrutable eyes.

The girl tilted her head a little to one side.

"You're a wolf." Her voice was quiet and impassive. "Or maybe just its teeth and claws."

Susan and the Doctor looked at her in confusion.

"You gonna explain that?" Susan's grandfather asked.

"It won't need explaining when you know it," the girl said in reply. Her unwavering eye contact was quite unlike ordinary human behaviour, and another human might have found it eerie or unsettling. "The captain has a ship if you want to get there."

"Get where?" Susan asked.

"Where you're going," the girl said simply. She turned and headed off into the crowds. With a quick, intrigued glance between them, Susan and the Doctor followed.

After about a five minutes walk, the girl approached a slightly battered old ship with its hatch down, and a cheerful looking young woman sitting on a crate next to it.

"Howdy River," the woman greeted the girl. Her eyes moved to the Doctor and Susan. She gave them a sunny smile.

"You folks need a ride? We're for hiring," she told them.

"Depends on where you're going," the Doctor replied, pulling on a bright smile of his own.

"Well, I think we gotta delivery to make to Persephone, but after that anywhere you want. I'm Kaylee."

"Perfect," the Doctor declared. "I'm the Doctor, this is Susan. We'd like to hitch a lift."

"Where to?" Kaylee asked.

"Oh, I dunno, wherever you lit want to go," the Doctor said. "Me and Susan are after a bit of a change from our humdrum little lives, aren't we Susan?"

Susan nodded, trying not to smile at the idea that she and her grandfather had 'humdrum little lives.'

"Then you picked the right boat for a ride, alright," Kaylee replied, smiling. "The captain likes things adventure-free, but excitement always seems to find us."

"Fantastic! What'll it cost me, then?"

"A thousand credits if you want to come with us to Persephone and back, I guess."

"Ah. Right."

The Doctor proceeded to go through his pockets for anything that might possibly be considered acceptable currency.

As Kaylee watched in increasing bemusement, he pulled out a five pound note, something that looked like a mechanical spider, an eighteenth century guinea, and a credit chip from the Fourth Bountiful Human Empire.

Shaking her head, Susan fished out a small velvet drawstring bag, and extracted a small glittering thing.

"I'm afraid we don't have any credits on us. Would you be willing to accept diamonds instead?"

A flawless half-carat stone sat on her palm.

Kaylee's eyes went wide.

"_Cai bu shi!_ Is that real?" She stared at the diamond in fascination. "It's real pretty."

Susan nodded.

"I'll have to ask the captain," Kaylee decided. "Wait here."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Susan.

"You carry diamonds about with you?"

"Well, most planets accept them somehow," she explained, dropping the jewel back into the bag. "I traded for some years ago, before I married David."

"How many've you got?"

"Several hundred half-carat and single-carat stones. The bag's bigger on the inside."

-

Kaylee returned, this time with a determined-looking black woman and a man in a long dusty coat.

"I'm Mal Reynolds, captain of _Serenity_," the man said without preamble. "Kaylee says you're wanting to pay in diamonds."

Susan pulled out one of the half-carat stones again and handed it to the captain.

Mal held it up to the light, stared at it, and looked at Susan.

"Mind if we borrow this?"

"Not at all, as long as I get it back," Susan replied.

"Kaylee." Mal turned to the young woman. "Take this and get it valued."

"Davis?" Kaylee questioned, accepting the diamond.

"He's pretty trustworthy," Mal agreed. "Find out what he thinks."

"Be back soon, captain," Kaylee said, and headed off into the crowds to have the diamond valued.

Mal looked at Susan and the Doctor, in a careful and assessing fashion. He had a cautious, dangerous feel to him, but Susan didn't think that he was necessarily untrustworthy. She'd seen the same air among experienced U.N.I.T. personnel. The woman beside the captain had a similar aura about her.

"So," said Mal. "You two have names to go with those diamonds?"

"I'm the Doctor, and this is Susan," the Doctor replied. He'd toned down the bright and cheerful act now that Kaylee was gone.

"And you would be her…" the black woman asked the question delicately, leaving it tactfully unfinished.

"Her uncle," Susan's grandfather said very firmly, looking slightly offended by the implications of her question.

"Right." Mal accepted this. "I prefer to steer clear of _romantic entanglements_ on my boat. This here's Zoe Washburne, my first mate."

Zoe nodded at them.

"Assuming your diamonds turn out turn out to be the genuine article," Mal continued, "I got just one question. Either of you Alliance?"

"Alliance? Us?" the Doctor asked without skipping a beat, far too brightly. "Nope, not a chance."

Zoe and Mal didn't look quite convinced, but the captain said,

Right. Then let's wait and find out if those diamonds are shiny."

Zoe blinked and raised an eyebrow at him slightly. Mal just gave her a stare.

"Honestly, we really aren't Alliance," Susan assured them earnestly, wondering what Mal meant by 'shiny.' "Uncle Ian just overdoes the enthusiasm a bit."

The Doctor looked offended again. Presumably the humans interpreted this as a response to their scepticism, but Susan knew better.

A sliver of thought reached her.

_Uncle Ian?_ Her grandfather sounded disgruntled.

_You know that you liked him really, Grandfather,_ Susan told him, before returning her attention to the spoken conversation.

"Is there anyone else on board your ship?" she asked Mal and Zoe.

"You can meet the rest of my crew when that diamond of yours checks out," Mal said, a little curtly.

The Doctor frowned.

"She was only asking a question. No need to get short with her for trying to be friendly."

"It's alright, uncle," Susan said soothingly. "I understand." She smiled winningly. "My grandfather could be a bit like that, sometimes."

The Doctor glowered at her. He had an excellent face for glowering this time round, Susan noted, particularly where the eyes, eyebrows and nose were concerned. Their arrangement lent an intense, piercing quality to the glower.

Susan giggled at him. Her grandfather eyed her darkly.

"Doubt your grandfather'd be pleased to hear it," he said warningly.

"I don't see why, it was perfectly true," Susan remarked, with perfectly-crafted innocence in her big eyes.

"Cheeky," her grandfather muttered, and they lapsed into silence, waiting for Kaylee's return.

-

After about half an hour of waiting – Susan sitting on Kaylee's crate, and the Doctor leaning against the ship itself, arms folded – Kaylee returned, a bounce in her step.

"Hey Mal, Zoe," she called. "It's real alright. Davis says it's one of the most flawless stones he's ever seen, and if we're finding ourselves at a loss with what to do with it, he'll happily take it off our hands and any others like it. Puts it at maybe four hundred credits, at _least_."

Mal nodded, and turned to his prospective passengers.

"Be back here before sundown with any luggage you folks might want to have with you. It'll be two stones like that one for Persphone and back. If you change you mind about where you're wanting to go then we can negotiate when it happens."

He nodded at Susan and the Doctor.

Susan held put her hand, eyeing Mal firmly. They shook on it.

"See you at sundown," Mal reiterated.

"Right, see you then," the Doctor agreed.

"Sundown." Susan nodded.

-

END CHAPTER

* * *

**Author notes:**

_Crossover alert! _

_Okay, first of all, Calebans belong to Frank Herbert, and you can read about them in _Whipping Star_, in which there is vast and entertaining communication failure between humans and a star, and a little in _The Dosadi Experiment_, which is rather grim. Calebans do not actually see nexus points in the books… and that's all I'll say about how they work._

_Secondly, Serenity, her crew, and that particular universe belong to the tv series _Firefly_._


End file.
